The stratified charge engine operates on the principle that the fuel density required for ignition is too rich to result in the complete combustion of the hydrocarbon fuel into carbon dioxide, resulting in the production of a high proportion of carbon monoxide in the exhaust of conventional piston engines. The stratified charge engine, however, by providing a single combustion chamber within a single piston but designating one area of the combustion chamber as high density, or rich fuel mixture, and another as very lean, achieves the effect of igniting the rich portion of the mixture which subsequently expands into the lean portion, achieving successful ignition but simultaneously enabling the combustion of an overall mixture which is below the density required for efficient and reliable combustion by a spark.
Burning hydrocarbon fuel to carbon dioxide as opposed to carbon monoxide, which of course requires double the amount of oxygen, yields more than three times the heat per molecule of fuel burned. A side effect, of course, is a lower rate or smog emission. Because the stratified charge engine produces both more power and fewer emissions it falls within that unique category of inventions which have solved two apparently mutually antagonistic problems at once. Thus, the stratifed charged engine represents a significant step in the technological development of the piston engine. The invention disclosed herein is a further refinement of the stratified engine concept.